My trip to Pasadena and the ICON6: part 4

Back in Bob Kato's Drawing Club for the first time in seven years.

Bob Kato, my Sketching for Illustration instructor from Art Center College of Design started up The Drawing Club back in 2002, my second and last year at Artcenter. Almost every thursday for a year I attended this workshop that Bob hosted outside the school, and were able to sharpen my observational skills as well as my character developing skills. I have drawn various charaters: naughty school girl, detective, boxer, silent movie actor, fashion model, beer maiden and spy, just to mention a few. Here are some of my drawings from back then.

The pure environment at the drawing club, the setting, Bob enthusiasm and drive and the input and feedback from the other artist at The Drawing Club such as: Forrest Card, Jeffrey Smith, John Puglisi, Danelle Davenport, Andrew Foster, Frank Stockton, Josh Cochran, Ronald Kurniawan and Ronald Velasco was priceless and pushed me to progress as an artist..... Thank you guys!
During my trip back I was lucky to meet with Bob Kato, Jeffrey Smith and David Luce, probably the three most important teachers I have had .... and just being able to join The Drawing Club (the special edition) at the Langham Hotel where the ICON6 was held, was fantastic and made me realise how much I have missed it! Thanks to Danielle for posing...amazing as the posh fashion model as always!

a special thanks to Bob for planning a The Drawing Club evening, and thanks to Bob, Jeff and David for you company and inspiration, I appreciate it

Thanks for reading
Erik

My trip to Pasadena and the ICON6: part 3

The Illustration Conference was held at the Langham Hotel in Pasadena from the 14th. of July to the 17th. of July. It was great meeting colleagues, hearing about where the business might be going and just to get some inspiration. The workshops and speakers were great, but not everything applied to a small market like the danish. I did some sketches of the differnt speaker and people sitting in the audience...mainly to be able to focus on what was being said (I always have to do at least two things at the same time, or my mind starts to wander). Here is a list with names and links to some of the speaker I captured in my sketchbook:
Martha Rich, Illustrator and President of ICON6
Fernanda Cohen, Illustrator and Vice President of ICON6
Mark Heflin, Executive Director of ICON
Tim Biskup, Illustrator and Fine Art artist
Wayne White, Fine Art artist
Craig Elliot, Concept Designer
Bill Schwab, Character Designer
Kathy Altieri, ArtDirector for "How to train your Dragon" at DreamWorks
Yuko Shimizu, Illustrator
Brian Rea, Illustrator and instructor at Artcenter College of Design
Ian Gooding, Disney
Eli Horowitz, Editor at McSweeney's
Sammy Harkman, Editor at Kramers Ergot
and finally Poet Greg Pincus, who gave a workshop on Social Media.

Thanks for reading
Erik

My trip to Pasadena and the ICON6: part 2

Wednesday, the first day of the Illustration Conference I had signed up for a sketching trip to China Town with my old artcenter teacher Jeff Smith and his teaching colleague Paul Rogers. About 15 conference attendees had signed up for this trip, among them Australian illustrator Nigel Buchanan. Jeff and Paul had hired two models to pose as Jack Gittes and the girl from Roman Polanskis "Chinatown" 1974. Half way through the second pose, the bar owner told us to quit drawing 'cause we were treepassing..... well we finished up, closed our sketchbooks and... went into his bar!
Jeff Smith is teaching a class at Artcenter, where students go to different LA locations and draw models who pose as murder victims.....I wish I could attend this class..unfortunately Los Angeles is a little bit to far from Copenhagen!

Thanks for reading

My trip to Pasadena and the ICON6: part 1

I went back to Pasadena and Los Angeles for the first time since I studied at Art Center College of Design form 2001-2003.
I was picked up in the airport by my old roommate Andrew Foster and stayed at his place in Los Angeles, until the Illustration Conference in Pasadena. Besides being a great painter, Andrew is also a magnificient painting teacher. I had the honor of sitting in his painting class, he teaches at Palos Verdes Art College. I did some sketches of the model, his students and him giving a demo.
Before I went back home, Andrew did a portrait of me in his painting studio. I posed twice, but Andrew probably only spend one and a half on painting my portrait...pretty amazing result he achieved in such a short time.

Thanks for reading and thanks to Andrew for being such a great host

-Erik

In the newspaper a couple of days ago

"Alligator blood" -horrorstory for kids

"Alligator blood" -horrorstory for kids

"The Ax murderer's Skull" - horrorstory for kids

Giant Alligator - for a book